


And Some without a Sigh

by Prochytes



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 21:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: Therapy, by other means.





	And Some without a Sigh

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._ to the end of S2 and _The Punisher_ to1x03 “Kandahar”. Title from Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”.

The home-life of the Great American Male finds itself falling into familiar patterns. The front door shuts in the evening, leaving the burdens of the day on the mat outside. Latch-keys rattle and settle in the bowl. The vain resolution – at the same time, every night – to put the remote where it can be found tomorrow.

Frank Castle, too, is a creature of habit. He comes in from work; washes his hands; and kills his wife. The backdrop changes: the airless rental where he lands Melville from his bed; the grotty grotto where Lieberman does his thing. The backdrop changes; the soundtrack never does.

Maria laughs, loves, dies. Frank strains to make out the features of the man in the balaclava. It is scratchy against his mouth as he pulls the trigger.

***

Maybe he should call her Ishmael. Frank reads with attention, if without pleasure.

She’s standing there, beside the desktops, one night as Frank jolts awake. She’s not Lieberman, unless Lieberman’s suddenly short and hot and Asian. Her stance and weight distribution, even at rest, tell Frank everything else he needs to know.

Frank goes in fast and hard. End it quick; she has to have come with back-up. This play pans out less well than expected. True, he’s some way from his mêlée peak right now, having been shot up a lot more than average lately. But she fights like no one Frank has ever seen, outside Red’s little circle of Hell.

He’s on the deck, no leverage worth shit, with eight more bruises to add to the collection. She has him cold, in a lock no woman who could get change from a buck and a quarter should think of pulling. She spits out blood.

Then, after a while, she begins to talk.

***

“Who is she, Lieberman?”

Lieberman shrugs, except that it isn’t even really a shrug. It’s the shoulder-twitch you’d see on a snot-nosed millennial punk. Frank tries to remember why Micro isn’t dead yet.

“Did you blow our operation to her?”

“That would have been a wacky decision on my part, wouldn’t it?”

Frank changes tack. “Maybe you got sloppy and gave her an in? Is there some hacker out there who’s just better than you? Kinda like the Macro to your Micro?”

“Fuck you, Frank.”

“Why was she here?”

Lieberman squints at a feed, and types on his keyboard. “Therapy.”

***

Frank is wiser to her moves, when she comes again. He doesn’t win, but the route to the floor is a touch more scenic. It’s longer before she has the breath to talk.

The wait doesn’t make what she has to say less bat-shit crazy.

Blue scientist space aliens. Jail-breaking gods. Something something something Nazis something. (Lieberman fastidiously steps over their grapple, bath-robe borne aloft by the breeze of his passing, with a bowl of Cheerios in hand.) A guileless girl, with right in her smile, and Richter in her hands.

She talks like someone to whom the words come hard. Frank listens. Bat-shit, maybe. But bat-shit’s in his wheel-house, now.

The Devil is a blind man, who makes confession.

***

“You and her, Frank, you’re the pink guns.”

“We are not the fucking pink guns.”

“But you are.” Lieberman arches back his neck to inspect the ceiling. “You beat each other senseless, and so she bonds with you. Creepy as hell; but it gets the job done, and beggars can’t be choosers. Pink guns.”

“Fuck you, Lieberman.” Frank drops down to the ground after his chin-ups. “There’s one thing I don’t get. You are – I guess I gotta say it – a good man…”

“Careful, Frank. There are cameras all around. I might make your face as you forced yourself to spit that out my screen-saver.”

“… but why go out of your way to help her like this?”

“She hasn’t told you everything – not yet.” Lieberman sighs, and looks back at his screens. “I said that this was about therapy. I didn’t say the therapy was just for her.”

***

On the third visit, she talks about Bahrain. After a while, Frank begins to answer.

FINIS


End file.
